Every life has dark tracts and long stretches of sombre tint, and no representation is true to fact which dips its pencil only in light, and flings no shadows on the canvas.
~ Alexander MacLaren
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Sunday, 27 October 2013
Wednesday, 06 October 2010
I win!
Today I won the lottery. Can you see it?
Actually, it was just that the weather was good - slightly overcast, but still clear, with a promise of rain. Then finding myself a patch of actual real live GRASS to sit on! Most places here don't allow you near the grass, but I saw someone sitting on the grass and rushed over to grab my share.
I got a call from an old student this morning. "Teacher, I'd like to have class again." I got the feeling he had spent some time practising the request. When I last taught him, I was ill-equipped to teach someone that basic. It'll go better this time.
The wind is picking up now. The two old duckies have gotten up, not stopping their deep discussion. The girl sitting on her towel at the other end of my green patch is still reciting. At first, I thought she was talking to herself, but it seems she's reciting lines of some sort. Maybe she's a famous actress I don't know about? Or maybe she is just talking to herself. There are less baby walkers now. The last lot was when they wheeled grandpa and junior side by side - two very different chairs. There's a pretty little black bird hovering. He won't tell me his name. And yes, I did ask.
Speaking of birds, they have a tree here with 'birds' hanging in it. Stands to wonder that this was the only tree without any real birds. What were they thinking?
Ok, clouds are pulling over in earnest now. I'll leave the grass to the birds and ants and head into the overpriced shopping centre. Dang little hooligan... we have close to 100% humidity today and he felt the need to activate the humidifier - a gadget that pumps out mist for when São Paulo goes into dry mode.
Later... (the above was copied from my notebook I carry around)
Before leaving, I walked around the park a little. Some people's idea of art truly makes me scratch my head. I found this furniture 'graveyard' - at least, that's what I assume it was meant to be. There were no helpful signs.
A somewhat more 'artistic' display (though still head-scratch worthy), was the one with the books in the water. Odd indeed!
A close-up of the books... an art book, a music book and a hand-written book.
Some friendly dinosaur came along and left some art too....
At the shopping centre, a woman collects her beribboned pom-pom. As they leave, little froufrou is 'watering' the pavement. 'Mom' froufrou blew me away when she bent down each time to wipe little froufrou's bum. Now I love dogs and babies and baby dogs, but...
Photo shamelessly pilfered from the net
Pampered has new meaning here. I mean, in the pet shop and pooch parlour inside, they sold things like Chownel No. 5 - a fluffy toy for pampered pooch in question - Cost? R$154!! That's about US$90. They had some other big names there too, like Yves St Laurent. A canopied bed? Diamond-studded collars (praying those were just glass... didn't have the courage to check the price tag).
Further along into my day found me at another end of the same neighbourhood with a different type of 'art'. This bus never moves from there and the girl making and selling jewellery is also a fixture.
I went home in heavy rain just a couple of hours after this last photo. The water in our street was up over my ankles and it smelled really bad. I think the sewer, that the people here call a river, had overflowed. It was a case of 'strip off at the door and walk straight into the shower'. All clothes and shoes went straight off to be washed.
The next night's class had me walking along a stretch that had some new artwork, graffiti of a more pleasing sort...
It was a good excuse to see what the cell phone could do after dark : )
Actually, it was just that the weather was good - slightly overcast, but still clear, with a promise of rain. Then finding myself a patch of actual real live GRASS to sit on! Most places here don't allow you near the grass, but I saw someone sitting on the grass and rushed over to grab my share.
I got a call from an old student this morning. "Teacher, I'd like to have class again." I got the feeling he had spent some time practising the request. When I last taught him, I was ill-equipped to teach someone that basic. It'll go better this time.
The wind is picking up now. The two old duckies have gotten up, not stopping their deep discussion. The girl sitting on her towel at the other end of my green patch is still reciting. At first, I thought she was talking to herself, but it seems she's reciting lines of some sort. Maybe she's a famous actress I don't know about? Or maybe she is just talking to herself. There are less baby walkers now. The last lot was when they wheeled grandpa and junior side by side - two very different chairs. There's a pretty little black bird hovering. He won't tell me his name. And yes, I did ask.
Speaking of birds, they have a tree here with 'birds' hanging in it. Stands to wonder that this was the only tree without any real birds. What were they thinking?
Ok, clouds are pulling over in earnest now. I'll leave the grass to the birds and ants and head into the overpriced shopping centre. Dang little hooligan... we have close to 100% humidity today and he felt the need to activate the humidifier - a gadget that pumps out mist for when São Paulo goes into dry mode.
Later... (the above was copied from my notebook I carry around)
Before leaving, I walked around the park a little. Some people's idea of art truly makes me scratch my head. I found this furniture 'graveyard' - at least, that's what I assume it was meant to be. There were no helpful signs.
A somewhat more 'artistic' display (though still head-scratch worthy), was the one with the books in the water. Odd indeed!
A close-up of the books... an art book, a music book and a hand-written book.
Some friendly dinosaur came along and left some art too....
At the shopping centre, a woman collects her beribboned pom-pom. As they leave, little froufrou is 'watering' the pavement. 'Mom' froufrou blew me away when she bent down each time to wipe little froufrou's bum. Now I love dogs and babies and baby dogs, but...
Photo shamelessly pilfered from the net
Pampered has new meaning here. I mean, in the pet shop and pooch parlour inside, they sold things like Chownel No. 5 - a fluffy toy for pampered pooch in question - Cost? R$154!! That's about US$90. They had some other big names there too, like Yves St Laurent. A canopied bed? Diamond-studded collars (praying those were just glass... didn't have the courage to check the price tag).
Further along into my day found me at another end of the same neighbourhood with a different type of 'art'. This bus never moves from there and the girl making and selling jewellery is also a fixture.
I went home in heavy rain just a couple of hours after this last photo. The water in our street was up over my ankles and it smelled really bad. I think the sewer, that the people here call a river, had overflowed. It was a case of 'strip off at the door and walk straight into the shower'. All clothes and shoes went straight off to be washed.
The next night's class had me walking along a stretch that had some new artwork, graffiti of a more pleasing sort...
It was a good excuse to see what the cell phone could do after dark : )
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Proteas
The photo doesn't do it justice. The painting desperately needs framing (we left its frame in SA) and I wish I knew how to clean it properly. After almost half a decade in the house of a smoker, it isn't looking its best. That's the yellowy-grey you see at the top and bottom.
For those who are unfamiliar with the subject of the painting, it's South Africa's national flower, the King Protea. My gran owned a florist shop, Heather the Florist, on Rink Street in Port Elizabeth. Apparently Stewart Titcombe (1898-1965) was visiting South Africa and painting scenes of Port Elizabeth, a town he grew to love. On finding the florist shop, he asked if he could paint the proteas, then gave the completed painting to my gran.
We just got back from the shopping centre... with the new modem. I really didn't want to get one, but having online students tomorrow, I had no choice. I need a reliable connection to be able to teach. The modem isn't a total waste, as we can use it anywhere in the world, so that is a plus.
And so starts another week. I need to just mark the remaining test papers of those who passed creatively.... but pass they do. Keeping my fingers crossed for a calmer week though.
Saturday, 17 October 2009
The little blog that tried
The good news is that I might get quite a few Kippy votes in today. We're on a dynamic IP address. Uh... this brings me to the bad news... while I was out teaching this morning, our modem was struck by lightning. I wonder if it was all the cursing I did at scammers and ISP's this week. What do you think? Anyhow, we have an old back-up modem on hand, but it is very dicey (reason it was replaced to start off with), as we're more offline than online with it. It took me a good while to load this compose page. I have no idea when or how I'm going to get this blog to post, so it may end up being a long blog. Good thing you all have nothing else to do other than read my waffling, right?
This week has been downright gruesome. Remember I posted about our ISP changing and how odd it was that they were going offline for 6 months? We got the call for that from our internet Carrier late on the Friday afternoon (well timed) before a long weekend. Monday was a public holiday. They pushed us to register with the new ISP within 24 hours or we'd lose out. Now, anytime we have internet issues, it is well nigh impossible to get through to the ISP... even on a good day. Everything was very official with this whole setup. Who're we to argue? When you encounter regular oddities, you get to a point where little surprises you. This changover to the new ISP happened literally a day before the bill was due for the old ISP. On Tuesday, I got a nasty call from the old ISP. Why haven't we paid? Uh.... well... I have no intention of paying for a service I'm not using. "But you're signed up with us." No, we're not. Yes, you are. I told them about the call from Telefonica telling us that we were to change to UOL because Terra would be going down. The caller claimed to know nothing about that. The conversation went downhill from there. Jurgis was out at a client and I was home getting my knickers in a knot. They don't give you much leeway here before cutting your internet. When Jurgis did finally get to speak to them, we were in for a surprise (that's putting it nicely). It turned out that we'd been scammed into changing... by who, we don't know. When your Carrier phones you, you can hardly ask them to show ID. We had confirmation calls and emails from the new ISP, UOL. The 3 'players' in this little game are all massive companies. We are now registered with two ISP's. It's a mess. Procon, the consumer rights organisation says we can only take action once we have proof that we're actually paying both. In the meantime, we should just choose one to cancel with *muttering under my breath*
Thing is, we need to move. We've been needing to move for a while now, but we're taking advantage of Brazil's never-never attitude to procrastinate. We've been wanting to change to cable (we're currently on adsl through our telephone company). To install cable in this house before we move is not practical, as we'd be faced with two lots of installation fees... one here and one once we move. Now we have the bust modem... the pressure is on.
Aside from our internet woes, I have been headachy, generally feeling unhealthy and grouchy *snap... snarl* Our electricity bill arrived. The price of electricity has gone up... way up. The tax alone is R$50 (around US$30), 50% of the actual bill, plus an extra fee for street lighting. The electricity tax is threefold... a municipal, state and federal tax. Eish! If we got great service and had excellent facilities, I wouldn't mind, but we don't. I was shuffling students again this week, as one of my Skype students had a power outage during our class this week and it wasn't even raining very hard at the time.
Jurgis just surprised me with a bit of information. I have been looking online for work by the artist, Stewart Titcombe, for years with little joy. It seems his paintings are now only being
sold, usually by auction. When I have a respectable connection, I'll post the photo of the painting I have. Stewart Titcombe was visiting my home town of Port Elizabeth some time before I was born. He went into my gran's florist shop and fell in love with some proteas he saw there and asked her if he could paint them. This painting is of the PE harbour. I found it on an auctioneer's site. Something that took me by surprise here too is that the ship is named Vergelegen, which was the name of the one farm my gran had. She spoke of it often.
Ah the joys... shall I try to post this blog? Guess saving it all first would be a good idea...
This week has been downright gruesome. Remember I posted about our ISP changing and how odd it was that they were going offline for 6 months? We got the call for that from our internet Carrier late on the Friday afternoon (well timed) before a long weekend. Monday was a public holiday. They pushed us to register with the new ISP within 24 hours or we'd lose out. Now, anytime we have internet issues, it is well nigh impossible to get through to the ISP... even on a good day. Everything was very official with this whole setup. Who're we to argue? When you encounter regular oddities, you get to a point where little surprises you. This changover to the new ISP happened literally a day before the bill was due for the old ISP. On Tuesday, I got a nasty call from the old ISP. Why haven't we paid? Uh.... well... I have no intention of paying for a service I'm not using. "But you're signed up with us." No, we're not. Yes, you are. I told them about the call from Telefonica telling us that we were to change to UOL because Terra would be going down. The caller claimed to know nothing about that. The conversation went downhill from there. Jurgis was out at a client and I was home getting my knickers in a knot. They don't give you much leeway here before cutting your internet. When Jurgis did finally get to speak to them, we were in for a surprise (that's putting it nicely). It turned out that we'd been scammed into changing... by who, we don't know. When your Carrier phones you, you can hardly ask them to show ID. We had confirmation calls and emails from the new ISP, UOL. The 3 'players' in this little game are all massive companies. We are now registered with two ISP's. It's a mess. Procon, the consumer rights organisation says we can only take action once we have proof that we're actually paying both. In the meantime, we should just choose one to cancel with *muttering under my breath*
Thing is, we need to move. We've been needing to move for a while now, but we're taking advantage of Brazil's never-never attitude to procrastinate. We've been wanting to change to cable (we're currently on adsl through our telephone company). To install cable in this house before we move is not practical, as we'd be faced with two lots of installation fees... one here and one once we move. Now we have the bust modem... the pressure is on.
Aside from our internet woes, I have been headachy, generally feeling unhealthy and grouchy *snap... snarl* Our electricity bill arrived. The price of electricity has gone up... way up. The tax alone is R$50 (around US$30), 50% of the actual bill, plus an extra fee for street lighting. The electricity tax is threefold... a municipal, state and federal tax. Eish! If we got great service and had excellent facilities, I wouldn't mind, but we don't. I was shuffling students again this week, as one of my Skype students had a power outage during our class this week and it wasn't even raining very hard at the time.
Jurgis just surprised me with a bit of information. I have been looking online for work by the artist, Stewart Titcombe, for years with little joy. It seems his paintings are now only being
sold, usually by auction. When I have a respectable connection, I'll post the photo of the painting I have. Stewart Titcombe was visiting my home town of Port Elizabeth some time before I was born. He went into my gran's florist shop and fell in love with some proteas he saw there and asked her if he could paint them. This painting is of the PE harbour. I found it on an auctioneer's site. Something that took me by surprise here too is that the ship is named Vergelegen, which was the name of the one farm my gran had. She spoke of it often. Ah the joys... shall I try to post this blog? Guess saving it all first would be a good idea...
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Graphic etiquette
This is the art I was working on yesterday and today. I say 'art' very loosely and with poetic license. Oh, who am I trying to fool... 'poetic'? I get these odd requests, being the resident 'artist' for the local pub. Talk about grand distinctions! Psh! This time, they wanted one of their patrons done up as a mermaid. They all went deep sea fishing recently and the above photo was taken on that occasion. Decorating their wall are various 'works'. One is the morph I did of Jorge as Shrek. Another was to create a package illustration of one of the patrons where he would resemble a pig eating a corn cob. It was based on a popular bar snack, which has an illustration of a pig eating a corn cob. Then there was the monkey on the motor cycle, which was done in mockery of one of their patrons who is a traffic officer, or as they call them here... a 'brownie', as they dress in brown uniforms. What do I get for this? Well, Jorge gets a few free beers out of the deal. I did manage to get Jorge to pour me a drink tonight with some heavy hints though.
Then the man returned from the pub with grandiose talk of etiquette. This was rich coming from someone who is very sparing with this subject at home. I think he simply doesn't want to wear his etiquette out in case he needs it in an emergency. He was going on about napkins. His point was that you always put a napkin on your lap, the only exception being when you're eating spagetti. Then you are permitted to tuck it into your collar, bib style. I said, as far as I knew, there were no occasions in formal eating, beyond the age of 2, where using your napkin as a bib was acceptable. Nope, he said, he was raised using a napkin as a bib with spagetti. I asked him if he had ever tested this theory in a restaurant, knowing full well he only eats spagetti when I force it on him at home. He hates the stuff, precisely because he has no control over where all that sauce goes.
I researched it and got sidetracked. I love reading etiquette articles. I found a couple of really good ones:
http://www.usheroff.com/52tips.html
http://www.career.vt.edu/DiningEtiquette/QandA.htm
So here goes... Tell me what you understand to be the proper use of the napkin in a formal dinner setting ; )
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